Category Archives: Mental Health

Breath, Breathing, Dehypnosis, Emotions, Fear, Forgiveness, Freedom, Healing, Health, Love, Memory, Mental Health, Mind, Spirit, Spiritual Health, Tapping, Thought, Trauma

Spirit is the healer

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Some say Spirit is the healer and they are right. But what does that really mean? Is the Spirit that heals, a ghost? An amorphous being, a specter, phantom, apparition or halloween spook? No, the spirit that heals is far more than that — and far more readily available to all.

The word spirit comes from the Latin noun spiritus, which means breath and from the Latin verb spirare, which means to breathe.

Spirit is the breath that breathes you. Spirit is the life that lives you. Spirit is the motion that moves you. Spirit is always there — filling you from within you holding you all around, about. There is nowhere spirit is not. You are never alone. Every breath you take is a gift of love.

God breathed life into Adam and God breathes life into you every moment of every day and all night through.  Breathing freely, fully and deeply is your natural condition.

When you are afraid, your breath becomes quick and shallow — you hold your breath. In essence, when you are afraid and hold your breath, you are saying No! to life.  At that point, tensions get stuck in your body.  When you recall the point at which you held your breath, you breathe again – the dis-ease, fear and tension are released. When breath is restored, ease is restored; Love returns to fill the place where the fear had been lodged. You are free.

And that is why they say,

Spirit is the healer.

Abuse, Dehypnosis, Depression, EFT, Fear, Feelings, Forgiveness, Happiness, Healing, Hypnotherapy, Love, Memory, Mental Health, Mind, Miracles, Moods, Suffering, Thought, Trauma

You are only as sick as your secrets

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Sometimes secrets are intentionally kept. On birthdays we don’t want our friends to know what we are giving them because we want them to be happily surprised.

Sometimes wonderful, velvet memories are kept secret because they are intensely private and personal. We do not care to share what they are because they might be misunderstood and not cherished by others as we cherish them ourselves.

But then there are the prickly or even stabbing secrets that hurt us then and continue to hurt us now. Those secrets are best aired and released. We fear that to tell them would only burden others, so we keep them to ourselves.

Truman Capote, author of In Cold Blood said that he used to write and write to get all the horrible secrets from his childhood out of his memory and onto the paper. Many people write, sing, make videos, journal and blog to get their stories out of their minds.

Sometimes secrets are so secret that they are secret even from ourselves. We have buried them deep in our minds because we don’t want to ever think again of the terror, horror, grief, pain, shame, guilt, humiliation. Many of the deepest secrets we have kept hidden from ourselves originated long ago — in childhood and even before.

Unfortunately, secrets unavailable to the conscious mind do not just go away of their own accord. They are still securely stored in the human subconscious, the hard drive, better known as the body. Unreleased tension can be stored in every muscle and cell of our body.

For the sake of our health and happiness, we need to locate and release those tensions. It is not difficult to do and it need not be painful. In fact, releasing old traumatic memories it is usually experienced as pleasant, freeing and empowering.

Here, we focus on simple, safe ways to release forgotten trauma and unpleasant emotions. We are available to coach you to free yourself from the chains of the past. Once you know how, you can release fear as it arises. To gain that degree of control over fear is the most exciting adventure on planet earth.

Everyone is welcome!

Bio, Dehypnosis, Healing, Hypnotherapy, Mental Health, Mind

Who is Auntie Patricia? Patricia Robinett?

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Observation constitutes the foundation
of every science.
Charles Sanders Pierce

Auntie Patricia is a detective, a scientist, a lady who wears many hats. She has delved deeply into several areas of life because something in her loves to solve mysteries … Who are we?… What are we? … What makes us tick? …  Why are we the way we are? … Why are things the way they are? … What is the point of life? … Is there a purpose?

Well, since Auntie Patricia is writing this, she might as well write in the first person…

In my work as a clinical hypnotherapist, I do not hypnotize people, since most or all of us are already living in a deep trance of fear and forgetfulness; rather, I de-hypnotize people. I wake them up from their walking trances. And in the same way, I de-hypnotize myself daily, moment by moment as circumstances arise that distract me from my peace of mind.

In regression therapy, I’ve facilitated many past life memories, which miraculously facilitate the gentle release of ancient fear, hatred, anger, grief, boredom and trauma, always in the interest of reclaiming the peace and joy that are our natural inheritance.

All healing is essentially the release from fear.
To heal is to make happy.
A Course In Miracles

A Course In Miracles is one of my favorite books because it talks extensively about healing and leads us to Knowledge, which is a direct experience of who and what you truly are. Are you a vulnerable physical body, personality and history? Or are you indestructible pure energy, spirit, life? Belief is not enough. We must know, because that is where uncertainty ends. In the ACIM Teacher’s Manual it says:

A universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible but necessary. It is this experience toward which the course is directed. Here alone consistency becomes possible because here alone uncertainty ends.

That beautiful universal experience is called Knowledge. My book Knowledge, The Essence of World Scriptures is a collection of quotes from around the world and through the ages that motivated me to seek until I received Knowledge. This book is also an inspiration to anyone else wanting the same. And after they receive Knowledge, the quotes in this book will inspire them to savor it.

ACIM and Knowledge helped me stay peaceful when I discovered that I’d been circumcised as a little girl. I wrote about that journey of discovery in my book The Rape of Innocence, Female Genital Mutilation and Circumcision in the USA. I am deeply grateful to the course for its information on healing and to Knowledge for its comfort.

Auntie Patricia is also a healing coach. Oops!… back to first person…

I coach friends and clients to release trauma and find peace of mind, to lose excess weight and to let go of substances they are allergic or addicted to. My work is to make it easier for people like you to move away from self-destructive thoughts and behaviors, toward happier, healthier ways of being.

I feel grateful when I can help even one person. If I can be of service, please let me know. Your happiness blesses me too. Read here on this blog, join the Community forum if you like, and if you’d like to make an appointment, you can write to me from the Contact page.

Fear, Memory, Mental Health, Mind, PTSD, Self Medication, Trauma, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), Veterans, War

Returning military face new enemies – PTSD & TBI

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The legacy of America’s combat missions will continue to affect the thousands of troops who come home suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injuries (TBI).

Many soldiers, like Colby Buzzell, were looking for excitement and purpose in the war, but were permanently affected by the combat they saw.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do or be,” Buzzell tells NPR’s Guy Raz. “Our country was at war, this was my chance to be part of history.”

“You think of all the things you’re going to do once you go back home,” he says. But once he got home, he had trouble coping. He began drinking heavily to avoid reliving firefights and combat missions. Eventually, he became more withdrawn. He and his wife divorced.

When Buzzell received a letter calling him back into the Army, he says, he would have done anything to avoid going back. He knew he wasn’t mentally stable and had been suicidal in the past. Finally seeking help, he was diagnosed with PTSD and deemed “undeployable” by the U.S. Army.

Though thousands of soldiers are diagnosed with PTSD, many more suffer without treatment. Among those who do seek treatment, doctors are finding another, distinctly different problem called traumatic brain injury, or TBI.

The two conditions have similar symptoms, but the causes are quite different. While PTSD is a psychological disorder that can be treated with medication and therapy, TBI is physical injury to the brain that requires cognitive treatment to help rebuild function.

“Fundamentally, PTSD is a disorder where you remember too much, whereas TBI is a disorder where you don’t remember enough,” says Dr. Gregory O’Shanick, National Medical Director for the Brain Injury Association of America.

“The main differences are that individuals with traumatic brain injuries also will have neurologic symptoms such as headache, light sensitivity, dizziness and will have difficulty, many times, with balance,” O’Shanick says.

Individuals with PTSD, on the other hand, will re-experience events or have emotional or behavioral symptoms, like “feeling ashamed, feeling guilty, avoidance types of behavior, things of that nature,” O’Shanick says.

Fortunately, doctors are working to develop a better understanding of how to treat the two different disorders and more soldiers are seeking and receiving treatment.

Behavior, Children, Circumcision, Confusion, Fear, Mental Health, Spiritual Health, Trauma

Circumcision & Human Behavior

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Circumcision & Human Behavior:
The emotional & behavioral effects of circumcision
by George Hill

Psychologists now recognize that male circumcision affects emotions and behavior. This article discusses the impact of male circumcision on human behavior.

Introduction

Medical doctors adopted male circumcision from religious practice into medical practice in England in the 1860s and in the United States in the 1870s. No thought was given to the possible behavioral effects of painful operations that excise important protective erogenous tissue from the male phallus. For example, Gairdner (1949) and Wright (1967), both critics of male neonatal non-therapeutic circumcision, made no mention of any behavioral effects of neonatal circumcision.[1] [2]

The awakening

Other doctors, however, were beginning to express concern about the behavioral effects of male circumcision. Read the rest of this entry »
ACIM, Judgment, Love, Mental Health, Mind, Miracles, Pain, Release, Spirit

Relinquishing judgment

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These wise words are from A Course In Miracles, Manual for Teachers…

In order to judge anything rightly, one would have to be fully aware of an inconceivably wide range of things; past, present and to come. One would have to recognise in advance all the effects of his judgments on everyone and everything involved in them in any way. And one would have to be certain there is no distortion in his perception, so that his judgment would be wholly fair to everyone on whom it rests now and in the future. Who is in a position to do this? Who except in grandiose fantasies would claim this for himself?

Remember how many times you thought you knew all the “facts” you needed for judgment, and how wrong you were? Is there anyone who has not had this experience? Would you know how many times you merely thought you were right, without ever realising you were wrong? Why would you choose such an arbitrary basis for decision-making? Wisdom is not judgement; it is the relinquishment of judgment. Make then but one more judgement. It is this: There is Someone with you Whose judgement is perfect. He does know all the facts; past, present and to come. He does know all the effects of His judgement on everyone and everything involved in any way. And He is wholly fair to everyone, for there is no distortion in His perception.

Therefore lay judgement down, not with regret but with a sigh of gratitude. Now are you free of a burden so great that you could merely stagger and fall down beneath it. And it was all illusion. Nothing more. Now can the teacher of God rise up unburdened, and walk lightly on. Yet it is not only this that is his benefit. His sense of care is gone, for he has none. He has given it away, along with judgment. He gave himself to Him Whose judgement he has chosen now to trust, instead of his own. Now he makes no mistakes. His Guide is sure. And where he came to judge, he comes to bless. Where now he laughs, he used to come to weep.

It is not difficult to relinquish judgment. But it is difficult indeed to try to keep it. The teacher of God lays it down happily the instant he recognises its cost. All of the ugliness he sees about him is its outcome. All of the pain he looks upon is its result. All of the loneliness and sense of loss; of passing time and growing hopelessness; of sickening despair and fear of death; all these have come of it. And now he knows that these things need not be. Not one is true. For he has given up their cause, and they, which never were but the effects of his mistaken choice, have fallen from him. Teacher of God, this step will bring you peace. Can it be difficult to want but this?

Abuse, Body, Breath, Circumcision, Confusion, Depression, EFT, Emotions, Fear, Feelings, Forgiveness, Healing, Health, Mental Health, Mind, Miracles, Moods, Mutilation, Pain, Psychology, PTSD, Release, Stress, Suicide, Tapping, The Rape of Innocence, Thought, Trauma

Depression is not irrational – Suicide is not a solution

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I was depressed from an early age. As a child, I always wanted to be dead. I know now that it was probably after my clitoridectomy. I was bereft. Life didn’t seem worth living. I went to the kitchen to get a knife to cut out my heart, but I was too small to reach the sharp knives – I didn’t even know where they were kept.

When I went back to my bed that night, I heard a voice say, “What makes you think it would be any different if you were to die?” I had to admit I had no guarantee. But I saw the implication was that I would have to live through those early childhood years again – no way! – and so I have stayed. My teen years and early twenties were no better. But after that, each year my heart has grown more full and rich and happy. I have no external possessions to brag about, but peace of mind and joy are my priceless treasures.

Depression is not irrational. It is a diagnosis that is like that drawer in the kitchen where you put everything you don’t know what to do with. Depression is an accumulation of legitimate, but unreleased fears, angers and sorrows. Our society does not allow grieving and does not offer anything much better than “you are born, life is for suffering, technology advances, and then you die.”. Religion often makes life on earth sound like a prison sentence, a valley of tears, after which – if you are perfect – you get to go to “heaven” and experience something that might or might not be all that much better than what you have known on earth… but there are no guarantees on any level.

lovely lady in flowersWhat finally brought me out of my depression was the discovery that when I was very very quiet, I could feel my heart.

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer… no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.” ― Albert Camus

Another way to say that is, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” It is! And it can be known NOW. But only one thing can exist in one place at one time, so as long as we hold on to negative feelings from the past, we do not feel that beauty that already exists in our own hearts.

I came to understand that I had something important to do here on planet earth. Until I released all that old baggage, I might just come back over and over again – no way! And so I began to do my work and began to let go of all that old and ugly stuff.

We are fortunate in this age to have lots of help – from people and healing systems like Jed Diamond, Byron Katie’s “The Work”, Gary Craig’s “EFT – Emotional Freedom Technique”, Hale Dwoskin’s “The Sedona Method”, and many others. It’s all about healing – letting go of fear/anger/sorrow. It’s why we’re here and why “stuff happens” – so that we feel the old stuff and release the past – to “forgive”, which is “for giving ourselves peace of mind, joy and health.” Feelings got stuck when we held our breath in fear. So whatever feelings come up, breathe into them… that’s how we tell ourselves that we’re safe here and now.

See the “Tools” tab, above and release one little thing today, here and now. You will be so glad you did. Then move to another… and let it go…

Breath, Confusion, EFT, Emotions, Energy Medicine, Fear, Feelings, Happiness, Healing, Mental Health, Mind, Miracles, Moods, Pain, Psychology, PTSD, Release, Stress, Tapping, Thought, Tools, Trauma

EFT – Emotional Freedom Technique

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Until you make the unconscious conscious,
it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
– Carl Jung

All healing is essentially the release from fear.
– A Course In Miracles

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), also called “Tapping”, does exactly what it says: it is a simple, easy way to release fear. It is a deceptively simple, yet effective tool for healing the mind, emotions and even the body.

To keep it simple, let’s call everything that is not at ease and peaceful, “fear”. Pain and dis-ease indicate a lack of ease, a lack of peace, and we can often track disease to its origin in fear.

We react to fear by contracting muscles in our body; we fight, flee or freeze. Synonyms for “fear” might include shock, terror, horror, dread, panic, anxiety, anger, rage, fury, sorrow, grief, angst, overwhelm, boredom, loss, frustration, irritability, loneliness, broken heart, longing, desire, jealousy, regret, envy, revenge, or any other feeling that is not peaceful and loving. Fear enters the mind, the body reacts by contracting. After that, if the fear is not released, it remains lodged in the muscles and even the cells of the body.

“Fear” is not our original condition – love is. Look into the eyes of any baby who was gently born and not circumcised and you will see eyes overflowing with unconditional love, aliveness, enthusiasm, and joy. Babies who have not been terrorized by intrusive medical procedures, drugs and scalpels, are relaxed. They can fall to sleep in a moment, no matter where they are or what is going on.

Yet a baby who was poked by sonogram, whose birth was medically induced, who was cut out or pulled out of his mothers, whose umbilical cord lifeline to mother was cut before he had downloaded his full allotment of oxygen and blood, who had monitoring devices attached to his head and body, a baby who was separated from his mother at birth and fed cow’s milk, not breastfed, a baby who was exposed to any number of unnecessary procedures such as blinding lights, heel pricks, injections of toxic chemicals into his pristine bloodstream, a baby who had surgery such as circumcision or open heart surgery… This baby, on the other hand, had a head start in the accumulation of fear. He learned to contract and withdraw, to distrust and expect betrayal.

After birth, fear messages are sent directly and indirectly, intentionally and unintentionally, from family members, friends, school, religion, television, movies, society; we make decisions based on things that happen to us and to others, etc and we carry all this fear forever – on our shoulders, in our stomachs or chests – until and unless we let it all go. We carry unconscious fear in the subconscious and the subconscious is the body. Muscles we tensed up long ago when terrible things happened, still hold the tension. They are the spots where we feel pain, tension, weakness. The good news is, we can let it all go and EFT is a very helpful tool in releasing fear. Letting go of fear is letting go of tension in the body and most disorders, disease, are caused by stored fear, tension.

Emotional Freedom Technique is the most effective way I’ve found to quickly and easily loosen and release uncomfortable bodily sensations from the mind and body – both ancient and current.

EFT is also called “tapping”, and you will be tapping on acupressure points to relax the inner organs that have been holding the “fear” you want to be free of.

Steps for using EFT to release fear:

1) Identify a feeling or attitude that causes you discomfort, a “fear” you want to release. Put it into words. If you cannot find a descriptor for it, just identify it by its location in the body. Examples might be: sense of anxiety, pain in my stomach, tension in my shoulders, anger at my mother.

2) Give it an intensity score. Zero means it does not bother you at all, ten means it is very much present, in your current awareness, and is occupying your mind and giving you pain and discomfort at this very moment. The goal is to use EFT until the intensity is gone and the score moves to zero.

3) Make it into a statement:

Even though I have this
[pain in my stomach],
I deeply and completely love and respect myself.

This statement serves a few purposes:

  • Naming the emotion or locating a feeling in the body is an important step in letting it go, for you are no longer unaware of it – you are now conscious of it. You have given the “demon” a name.
  • You can only release something that you already “have”. If you are unaware of a feeling, then you do not “have” it; it “has” you. But once you have it, you can release it.
  • “Even though” minimizes the importance of the “fear” you have named. It says that this “thing” that has been burdening you for a very long time is now inconsequential and you are ready to let it go.
  • To say that you love and respect yourself, even though you have carried this feeling, is a way of saying that you forgive yourself and love yourself enough to live without the burden.

4) The simplest way to perform this “exorcism” on yourself is to repeat the statement in #3, above, and tap 8-10 times on each acupressure point (see diagrams below). Some start by tapping on the side of one hand (karote chop point, in diagram below), using the palm of the other hand, and repeating the statement a few times, adjusting it for accuracy, if necessary. Then, starting at the top of your head, tap each point several times while repeating the statement. Some people shorten the statement after a few repetitions to the ‘complaint’, such as:

Even though I have this [sense of guilt], I deeply and completely love and respect myself…
Even though I have this sorrow, I deeply and completely love and respect myself…
Even though I have this sorrow, I deeply and completely love and respect myself…
this sorrow… this sorrow… this sorrow…”  – concluding with,
Even though I have this sorrow, I deeply and completely love and respect myself.

Now it is time to re-evaluate the intensity score you gave to the emotion in the beginning. On a scale from 1 to 10, how intense is the sensation now?
Some issues will resolve in one short round. Others may require several rounds, alternating tapping on both sides of the body. And some very old – or very fresh – issues may need to be addressed several times for several days. The good news is, it will all go away and stay away, once you have tapped it away. A little bit of attention now prevents years of discomfort in the future.

Here are two helpful sheets that you can access at any time from your phone or computer to remind you of how to use EFT:

EFT mini instructions

and

instructions